Research
Please note that no more research is being conducted as the NECOM Chair is no longer active.
Past Research Projects
NECOM researched combines the theoretical background of negotiation engineering, different technical and applied negotiation schools of thought, mediation and conflict management, with the practical appreciation of negotiation. Journals of our interest included Negotiation Journal, Negotiation and Conflict Management Research, International Negotiations: A Journal of Theory and Practice.
Swiss-EU Institutional Agreements: Science-Based, Policy-Relevant Contributions
The bilateral agreements between Switzerland and the EU are of essential importance to both parties. Lengthy negotiation efforts to consolidate bilateral relations recently resulted in a draft agreement. Due to its potentially significant impact, it has received considerable domestic attention. The chair has contributed to the discussion by thoroughly analysing the draft agreement from a negotiation theory perspective. This project took place in an interdisciplinary environment at the intersection of negotiation theory, international law and decision theory. On the basis of our analysis, we have advised ministerial offices and published concrete proposals for further negotiations that are science-based and have significant policy implications.
Negotiation and Sustainability Transitions
Our work contributed to understanding the politics of sustainability transitions in the context of increasingly ambitious climate targets. Specifically, we tried to understand the interplay of local, national and international political developments relevant to EU energy policy, drawing upon empirical case studies in smaller EU member states with parallel political and economic challenges. The goal was to enrich the sustainability transition literature with insights from negotiation theory and political economy, and to explore how actors negotiate and build coalitions.
Game Theory in Negotiation
A game-theoretical analysis of negotiation and voting situations can often give a clearer picture of the problems that underlie given mechanisms and structures. We tackled such questions by means of cooperative bargaining theory, voting theory and non-cooperative game theory. As a spin-off of this research, our efforts have focused on preference-estimation techniques relying on so-called dictator games.
Relevance and Outreach
Our seminar “Simulation of Negotiations” was a collaboration between ETH Zurich, the University of Geneva and other international Universities. Our students studied a current conflict and then, in a simulated negotiation, attempt to reach a settlement between the parties involved. We then published and disseminated an analysis of the results. Conflicts covered included the war in eastern Ukraine and the dispute over the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula. Issues that arose during the seminar, such as the likely benefit of e-voting in a conflict zone, were subsequently studied.
Other Research Topics
Other past research topics included "CH-EU Relations: Contemporary Challenges"; "Parallelism of CH-EU and UK-EU Relations Post-Brexit" and "The Utility of Nuclear Weapons: Bargaining Models Incorporating Nuclear Accidents and Deterrence".